38. I wish now, O Goddess! to see the earthly city of my lord again; let us therefore turn our course that way, as no place is distant to the resolute. 39. Vasishtha said:—Having said so, she bowed down to the goddess and entered into the shrine, and then like a bird, she flew into the air with the goddess. 40. It was a region devoid of darkness, and as fair as a sea of moonlight. And then it was as azure as the person of Náráyana, and as bright as the back of a locust. 41. They passed above the regions of the clouds and winds, as also beyond the spheres of the orbits of the sun and moon. 42. They passed beyond the path of the north polar star, and the limits of the circuits of the sádhyas and siddhas and other celestial beings. 43. Thence they ascended to the higher heavens of Brahmá and the Tushita divinities, and then upward to the sphere of Golaka (the zodiac); and thence again to the Sivaloka, and the sphere of the Pitris or the departed souls of the dead. 44. Passing thus beyond the spheres of the embodied living beings, and bodiless souls of the dead, they proceeded far and farther to the unknown regions of empty space. 45. Having passed the etherial sphere, they beheld nothing there, except the sun, moon and the stars shining below them. 46. There was only a deep darkness to be seen, filling the whole vacuity of space, and appearing as the basin of the waters of universal deluge, and as compact as the impenetrable cavity of a rock. 47. Lílá said:—Tell me, O goddess! what became of the light of the sun and other luminaries, and whence came this dense darkness as to be compressed under the fist (mushti-gráhya). 48. The goddess replied: you have got to a spot so remote from the spheres of heaven, that the light of the luminaries can never reach to it. 49. And as one in a deep dark pit, can see no light of a fire fly flitting over it; so the solar light is invisible to one behind the great belt of heaven. 50. Lílá said:—Oh! the great distance that we have come to, whence the great luminary of the sun also, appears as small as an atom below. 51. Tell me mother, what sort of a place is that which lies beyond this region, and how can we come to it after traversing this gloomy expanse. 52. Sarasvatí said:—Behind this is the great pole of the universe, which is scattered over with innumerable nebular stars in the form of the particles of dust. 53. Vasishtha said:—As they were talking in this manner, they glided imperceptibly to that pole, as the bee saunters over the solitary hut on the height of a mountain. 54. They then were at no pains to come down from that precipice, as there is no pains to effect what must certainly come to pass in the end, though it appeared difficult at first. (Or) that which is certain must come to pass, however hard it might seem at first. 55. They saw the system of the universe, laid naked to their sight, as the bold navigator beholds a world exposed to his view beyond the wide expanse of waters.